and, oh, if only I could give her a blue silk dress I’d be the happiest!
She loves pretty things and she’s never had anything silk.” Then
eagerly, anxiously, “Miss Bayley, could I get a silk dress for two
dollars and thirty cents?”
The young teacher hesitated not at all. “Of course you can, dear girl.
That is, you can get the blue silk by the yard and then you can make the
dress.”
The freckled face that at first had brightened, looked doleful again.
The child shook her head as she said: “I couldn’t, teacher. I don’t know
anything about how to put on patterns. Grandma Piggins did, and she made
us the gingham dresses, but she made them button in front, and Carol
wants buttons in the back.”
“And so she shall have them, dear. Of course you can’t use a pattern
yet, but I will show you how.” Then, before the small girl could express
her gratitude, the young teacher exclaimed: “I’ll tell you what we’ll
do, little Miss Martin. To-morrow will be Saturday, and you and I will
go to Genoa on the nine-o’clock stage, shall we? Then you may choose the
silk and a pattern. I have some lace in my trunk that will do nicely for
trimming. How would you like that?”
“Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley, I’d love it! I’ve never been to Genoa but
once.” Sudden tears in the child’s eyes assured Miss Bayley that the
once had been a sad occasion, as indeed it had been, for with her father
she and Ken had gone to select a coffin for their beautiful mother.
Desiring to change the thought of her little guest, Miss Bayley asked,
“What color do you like best, Dixie?”
“I like the first green that comes on the trees down by the creek in
spring. It’s like a fairy color with silver on it,” the little girl
said.
Miss Bayley nodded. “That would make a pretty silk dress,” she remarked,
“but I’d like you to have a cashmere dress, the same gold-brown as your
eyes.”
“Me? Oh, I don’t need a new dress, Miss Bayley. I don’t mind buttons
down the front the way Carol does.”
The young teacher laughed, saying, as she rose to clear the table, “We
shall see what we shall see.”
Dixie was about to assist when the sound of wheels attracted her
attention. “Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley,”—the child seemed actually
frightened,—“something dreadful must have happened. Here come all the
Archers.”
There was a sudden firmness about Josephine Bayley’s pretty mouth, and
an expression in her eyes that seemed to say, “Let them come.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE SHEEP-KING DICTATES
Miss Bayley opened the door when she heard an imperative rap thereon.
“Oh, good-afternoon, Mrs. Archer and Mr. Archer,” she said graciously.
“Come in, won’t you, and Jessica? You are all acquainted with my little
friend, Dixie Martin, and so introductions will not be necessary. Won’t
you be seated? This is my most comfortable chair, Mrs. Archer, and
Jessica, you will find room over on the window-seat by Dixie.”
The wife of the sheep-king sat down, but held herself rigidly erect.
“Miss Bayley,” she said, “didn’t you get an invitation to come to our
house to supper?”
“Why, yes, Mrs. Archer, but did not Jessica tell you that although I
appreciated your thoughtfulness, I could not accept to-day, as I had
another engagement?” Miss Bayley was calm, and completely mistress of
the situation.
The older woman sneered. “Engagement?” she repeated sarcastically. “How
could you have any engagements in these here parts that couldn’t be set
aside when I need your services?”
Miss Bayley’s eyebrows lifted, ever so slightly. “I did not understand
that you needed me,” she said. “I thought that you wished to contribute
to my pleasure by inviting me to supper.”
Mrs. Archer’s manner changed. “Well, so I did in a way, and if you’ll go
back with us now,” she said, “I’ll call it all right.” She knew that
unless Miss Bayley did help her, she would be unable to read a paper
before the Woman’s Club in Genoa on the next day.
For one brief moment Josephine Bayley hesitated. Should she defy this
woman and declare her right to independence at least as far as her free
time was concerned? A second thought reminded her that this would be
unwise, if she wished to remain in the mountain country; and now, more
than ever, she did wish to remain, that she might help little Dixie
Martin, if for no other reason.
That small girl had risen, and in the pause she said shyly: “Teacher,
Miss Bayley, I must be going. Baby Jim is like to be missing me by now.”
“Very well, dear.” The teacher also rose and walked to the door which
she opened, and then said, loud enough for the listeners to hear without
effort: “Dixie, be ready to-morrow morning at half-past eight. You would
better come up here, dear, and then the stage will not need to stop on
the cañon road.”
Then, closing the door and turning back into the room, she added
pleasantly: “I suppose, Mrs. Archer, that you wish me to prepare a paper
for you. If that is true, I will get my hat and coat and accompany you.”
Her manner, in spite of the graciousness of her words and tone, was
defiant, and when she returned from her screened bedroom, she found Mr.
Archer, his hands behind him, pacing up and down the living-room.
“Look a-here, Miss Bayley,” he blurted out, “my wife and me aren’t at
all satisfied with your actions. It’s us chiefly that supports this
school and pays your salary.”
The teacher’s eyebrows lifted questioningly. “Indeed?” she said. “I
thought this was a public school in the Genoa district.”
Mr. Archer was obliged to confess that, in one way, it was. “But it’s my
taxes, mostly, that pays your salary,” he contended.
“When taxes are paid into the county treasury, the money is no longer
yours,” Miss Bayley told him. “It belongs to the people to be spent for
the best interest of the entire community.”
The young teacher’s manner was quiet, but she spoke as one who knew.
Mrs. Archer, unable to longer remain silent, burst forth with: “You
might as well understand, once for all, that Mr. Sethibald Archer is
boss of this here school, and what he says goes. Mr. Samuel Clayburn,
the banker, he as is head of the board of education over in Genoa, told
Mr. Archer that as long as everything went along all right, he’d not
interfere with my husband’s management of this here school district.”
The ponderous woman rose, and her expression was one of triumph. Mr.
Archer nodded his agreement. “That’s just what the Honorable Clayburn
said, and so, if you’re wanting to remain in this here school, you’d
better not be setting those no-account Martin children up over our
Jessica. Now, are you coming with us, Miss Bayley?”
To their unconcealed amazement, the young teacher mutinied.
“No,” she said quietly, “I am not. I consider my free time my own to do
with as I wish, and I do not wish to go anywhere this evening.”
A dull red suffused the face of Mr. Sethibald Archer. “Miss Bayley,” he
sputtered, “this here term ends the middle of December. You can pack up
your baggage and be ready to leave the day after.”
“Very well, Mr. Archer,” was the astonishing reply, “if you are still in
authority when that time arrives, I shall do as you request.”
When the three were again in their buggy and on their way down the
valley road, the irate man exclaimed: “Such impudence! If I’m in
authority by the middle of December, she’ll leave. Huh, she’ll leave all
right! Who else in these here parts has brains enough to be governing
board of a public school?”
Mrs. Archer, being a wise wife, smoothed his ruffled feelings by
remarking: “Nobody, of course. You’re the brainiest man anywhere this
side of Genoa.” Then she added, with a sigh, “I’ll have to give up
reading that paper to-morrow, and you’ll have to drive over and tell ’em
I was took sick or something. If I was you, I’d stop in at the bank
while you’re in Genoa, and clinch the matter about dismissin’ that
upstart of a Miss Bayley.”
“That’s just what I’ll do!” Mr. Archer agreed, as he drove into his
barnyard.
They had forgotten that on the next day the teacher and Dixie Martin
were also going to Genoa.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
DIXIE GOES SHOPPING
Dixie was awake on the eventful Saturday morning as soon as the first
bird-note was heard underneath the wide-spreading eaves. Quietly she
slipped from bed, hoping not to awaken the little curly-headed sleeper
at her side, but, just as she was buttoning up her best gingham dress,
Carol opened dazed blue eyes and looked about.
“Why, Dixie Martin, what for are you up so early?” was the puzzled
query, but almost instantly the little girl remembered, and at once she
began to climb out of bed.
“Oh, I know,” she prattled, “this is the day that you go to Genoa with
Miss Bayley, and I am to be ‘little mother’ to Baby Jim and Ken.”
In another moment the arms of the older girl were about her, and the
flushed cheeks were being kissed as Dixie exclaimed, “Carol, it’s so
nice of you not to mind my going and leaving you at home, but some day,
I’m just sure, it will be your turn to go and see the shops, and—and
everything.”
There was joy in the heart of Dixie as she descended the ladder that led
from their loft bedroom. How Carol had changed! Just one short month ago
she would have sulked if Dixie were to be given some pleasure that she
had not been asked to share, but to-day the small girl was actually
getting up hours earlier than usual, that she might be a real help in
the little home, and that Dixie need not be all tired out before
starting on her wonderful journey. But, early as these two little maids
were astir, Ken was ahead of them, and, just as the potatoes and bacon
were sizzling for breakfast, in he came with a pail of milk.
“Girls,” he cried jubilantly, twirling his cap so dexterously that it
caught on the hook by the door, just as he wished it to do, “something’s
happened. Something jolly! Guess what.”
The sisters looked interested but did not venture a guess.
“Blessing is weaned!” was the astonishing announcement. “He wriggled out
of his pen in the night I guess. I was awful panicky at first, thinkin’
like as not he was lost, but where d’you think I found him? In the shed,
eating apples.”
“Well, I’m glad,” Carol remarked as she continued with her task, “we
won’t have to bother any more about feeding him with a bottle.”
Dixie sighed, “I was hoping you’d say my cat had come back. She’s been
gone three weeks if it’s a day.”
Ken laughed as he turned the milk through a sieve. “Cats always come
back, sis,” he said encouragingly. Then, for a moment, he was silent as
he plunged his face into a deep basin of cool water from the pump, but
later, when he was rubbing vigorously with a rough towel, he winked one
eye at Carol as he added: “Even if Topsy never comes back, it’s small
loss. The world is full of cats.” He said it to tease, for well he knew
his sister’s devotion to that particular black cat. The expected retort
came:
“Why, Ken Martin, how can you say that, when you know there’s only one
Topsy cat? You might as well say that if Baby Jim went away, it wouldn’t
matter, ’cause the world is full of babies.”
Carol pretended to be indignant. “Dixie, how can you speak of cats and
our baby all in one breath?”
A small voice arose in the next room, and the little mother flew
thitherward, to return a moment later with a sleepy, flushed little
four-year-old, who was covered with a long pink-flannel nightie. His
golden curls were towsled, and when the little maid had seated herself
and cuddled him on her lap, he beamed around at them all, but looked up
into the face that was bending over him with his sweetest smile. Then,
lifting his warm little hand, he patted her freckled cheek as he
prattled, “Jimmy-Boy loves Dixie.”
Almost convulsively the girl held him close. “Oh, Baby Jim,” she said,
“I’m awfully sorry I said that about cats, for even if the world is full
of babies, after all, there’s only just one.”
An hour later Carol looked at the clock. “You’d better hurry, Dix,” she
said. “You wouldn’t want to miss the stage.”
And hurry the little maid did, and at eight o’clock promptly she set off
up the cañon trail with a song singing in her heart, and with feet that
could hardly be kept from dancing.
Josephine Bayley was just finishing her breakfast when a tap came upon
her door. With the girlish skip which had so shocked prim little Miss
Archer, she went to open it, and, as she had supposed, she found Dixie,
her freckled face aglow, standing outside.
She was wearing a very pretty leghorn hat wreathed with daisies.
“Why, Dixie, how nice you look!” the young woman exclaimed. “Come in,
dear. We can see the stage when it comes up the valley road. What a
pretty hat you have.”
The girl flushed. “’Tisn’t mine, teacher,” she confessed. “It belongs to
Carol, but she just made me wear it.” Then she added in a burst of
confidence: “Carol’s changed a lot since she went away to be ’dopted.
Before that she never would let me even put this hat on in front of the
mirror, let alone wear it outdoors, but this morning, when I was putting
on my old hat that got caught in the rain last spring and sort of
limped, she came right up and took it away, and then, before I knew what
she was up to, she slipped back of me and put her treasure-hat right on
my head, and when I said something might happen to it, she said, ‘All
right, let it,’ but that she wasn’t going to have her big sister go to
town in a hat that looked as though Biddy-hen had used it for a nest.”
There were sudden tears in the eyes of the little girl. “Oh, teacher,”
she confided, “I did think that I always loved Carol as much as ever I
could, but I’m loving her more every day, and Ken, too. He said last
night, ‘Gee, sis. I’m glad now Carol went away to be ’dopted, for I’m so
glad she came back.’”
“She is a dear, sweet girl,” Miss Bayley said, “and it was nice for her
to want you to wear the hat which she so treasures, but I’m sure that
nothing will happen to it, for there isn’t a cloud in the blue, blue
sky, and we’re not expecting whirlwinds to carry it away.”
While they talked, Miss Bayley washed the few dishes and then Dixie
helped her spread the bed in the screened-in porch, which was still a
joy to the girl who had lived her twenty years in crowded New York.
Just as the last little pat was given to the pillow, a distant rumbling
was heard, and Dixie ran to the front window of the cabin and looked
down the valley road. “It’s coming, teacher, Miss Bayley. The stage is
’most here!”
Josephine Bayley felt as though she were a girl again, a very young
girl. Dixie’s excitement was contagious. Donning her hat and jacket, and
taking her shopping-bag, which had room in it for all the things they
were going to purchase, she caught the little girl by the hand, and,
though her feet longed to skip, they thought it best to walk demurely,
for the innkeeper’s wife, Mrs. Enterprise Twiggly, had appeared to greet
any newcomers that might have arrived to stay at the inn, and well did
Miss Bayley know that she expected schoolteachers to appear morosely
dignified.
Mr. Hiram Tressler, the driver of the stage, was a very old man, having
driven that route more years than Mr. Enterprise Twiggly could remember.
He had been born and brought up in those parts, but his unwavering good
nature and optimism had kept him young-looking, and his life
out-of-doors had made him, as he himself said, “as hard as a pine-knot.”
“All aboard, them that’s comin’ aboard!” he called from his high seat.
Then, noting that the new teacher, whom he had brought up from Reno but
a month before, was about to embark with him, he added, “Miss Bayley,
wouldn’t you an’ little Dixie Martin like to sit up front?”
The young girl looked up into the face of her companion so eagerly that
the teacher gave a laughing response that she was sure they would be
glad to accept the invitation. The passengers inside the coach looked
like traveling salesmen, with much baggage stowed about them, and they
seemed much more desirous of sleeping than they did of admiring the
majestic scenery through which they were to pass. One did waken when the
stage started with a jolt, but soon dozed again.
Little Dixie, wedged in between Miss Bayley and the stage-driver, looked
up beamingly at first one and then the other. “Traveling’s real
exciting, isn’t it?” she said at last, when they were well under way.
Josephine Bayley nodded. Was it amusing or was it tragic, she was
wondering, that this little midget, small for her twelve years, had
never been out of Woodford’s but once before, and that once to help
select a coffin. Josephine Bayley resolved that this day should be so
brimmed with happy hours that the little girl would have no time to
recall the sad memory of that other journey to Genoa.
They were turning down the rough, rugged cañon road that was deep in the
shadow of great old pines, when Ken, Carol, and Baby Jim leaped from
behind the massive trunks where they had been hiding, and shouted,
waving their handkerchiefs, “Good-by, Dixie! Good-by, teacher!” Then
Baby Jim’s shrill, excited voice floated down the cañon after them,
“Bring me some candy!”
What a happy light there was in the gold-brown eyes that were lifted to
the teacher, as the little girl said: “I hoped they’d all come. I’m so
glad they wanted to!”
Josephine Bayley held the thin hand of the child in a close clasp, and
she was thinking: “Lucky little girl! How I wish I had some one to care
whether I come or go! Brother Tim is all I have in this wide world, and
we are so far apart.” Then, remembering that this was to be Dixie’s day,
the teacher chatted about things that would interest her little comrade,
and two hours later Mr. Hiram Tressler sang out, “There’s Genoa’s
church-steeple.” Then, with evident pride, “Teacher, did ye ever see any
buildin’ go up much higher’n that?”
Miss Josephine Bayley, late of New York, had to confess that she had
seen steeples a mite higher. She wondered what the stage-driver would
think if his route led by the Woolworth building, but how glad, glad she
was that it didn’t!
Ten minutes later the stage-driver drew rein. “Here we are now. That
there’s the dry-goods emporium, teacher. I’ll pick you up agin, right on
this very spot, prompt at five o’clock. So long!” Then the stage rumbled
away, and Dixie, clinging to the teacher’s hand, entered the store, her
heart beating like a trip-hammer.
There was silk, silk everywhere about her, and how glad she was that two
dollars and thirty cents would buy enough for a birthday dress for
Carol.
CHAPTER TWENTY
DIXIE BUYS A SILK DRESS
Josephine Bayley smiled down at the little girl as she felt the clinging
fingers tighten. “Oh, teacher,” the child whispered rapturously, “I
didn’t suppose there was so much silk anywhere in all the world. It’s
like rainbows, isn’t it?” They were standing at the counter, waiting for
a pleasant-faced little woman to come to them.
“May we see the different shades of blue silk?” Josephine Bayley asked,
when at last the clerk turned toward them.
“Oh-ee, how Carol would love that one,” Dixie said as she pointed to a
blue, the color of a June-morning sky. The small girl did not think to
ask the price. Teacher had said that two dollars and thirty cents would
be enough, and Dixie doubted this not at all.
A pattern was selected, one with ruffles, for nothing was to be omitted
that the heart of the little sister had been set upon, and then
sufficient silk was measured off. Miss Bayley, having had a moment’s
opportunity to speak alone with the clerk, had asked her not to mention
the price. Turning back, she saw little Dixie smoothing the silk as
reverently as though it were almost too beautiful to be touched, and yet
there was no thought of envy in her heart. Two dollars and thirty cents
could buy but one silk dress, and that one should be for Carol.
While the parcel was being wrapped, Dixie looked about. Suddenly she
caught the teacher’s hand and drew her down the aisle. “Look there,” she
whispered as she lifted glowing eyes. “That’s the silvery green I was
telling you about, Miss Bayley. Isn’t it like the very first leaves on
the willow trees down in the creek-bottom?”
The young woman nodded. “It is just lovely, dear,” was all that she
said, but she thought much more. Then, when the saleswoman returned,
Dixie drew forth the old-fashioned purse that had been her mother’s and
counted out the money, which was in dimes and nickels. There were so
many of them that it looked like quite a fortune heaped upon the counter
in front of her. The little girl did not dream that the silk for Carol’s
dress had cost five dollars.
“Now, dear,” Miss Bayley smiled down at her, “let’s go over to the book
department. I want to get a more modern arithmetic than the one that I
found in the school.” While the young teacher was examining mathematical
books, Dixie, with a little half-suppressed cry of joy, skipped toward a
table spread with attractively-covered juveniles, and so absorbed was
she a moment later that Miss Bayley found the opportunity she desired to
slip back to the silk counter and order a pattern of the pale-green that
in one light shimmered like silver.
Had Dixie noticed the shape of the package that the teacher carried when
they left the store, she might have thought it rather soft and bulky for
a book about mathematics, but there were so many things to see and
admire that she noticed it not at all.
It was noon, and to the little girl from the mountains the main street
of the village seemed thronged. Again she clung to her teacher’s hand as
they made their way toward the café, over which hung the most alluring
sign.
“Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley, are we going in here?” It was hard for the
child to believe that she was actually going to have lunch in a place so
sparkling with mirrors and lights.
But it was really true, for Miss Bayley was leading her to a little
table in one corner that was just for two.
Then when the orders had been given, the small girl, wide-eyed, looked
all about her. “There’s going to be music,” she whispered. “It’s over
behind those plants.” She had seen two violinists in a palm-sheltered
corner, and even as she spoke the first sweet strain was heard. Miss
Bayley watched the sensitive, expressive face of the little girl and
wondered how any one could call her homely.
It was the first time Dixie had ever heard the music of a violin, and
when the last note had died away she lifted eyes that looked as though
they had seen a vision. “Miss Bayley,” she said, “some time I want to
play like that.”
And just then the teacher, looking ahead through the years, seemed to
see a beautiful, willowy young girl dressed in soft, shimmering green,
with red-gold hair glowing beneath the lights, playing a violin, while a
vast multitude of people listened breathlessly. Was it a prophecy?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DIXIE VISITS A FRIEND
They were again on the street, and the noon throng had vanished. As it
was still too early for the afternoon shoppers to arrive, the town
seemed to be taking a midday siesta. Dixie wondered where they were
going, but said nothing until they turned a corner, when she uttered an
exclamation of joy. “Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley,” she exclaimed. “There’s
the bank. How I’d perfectly love to go in and see kind Mr. Clayburn.”
Then, looking up anxiously. “Would it ’sturb him too much, do you
suppose?”
Miss Bayley had a secret desire to see the head of the board of
education of the Genoa district, and so she replied, “We can at least
inquire, and if Mr. Clayburn is not busy, he may see us for a few
moments.”
The banker had just returned from his lunch, and was in his handsomely
appointed private office. He was never too busy to see a friend, he told
little Dixie, when, wondering-eyed, she had followed the uniformed
bank-messenger into the marble-walled room.
“This is our new teacher, Miss Bayley,” the child said, not knowing the
right form of introduction.
The kind face of the man lighted. Holding out his hand, he exclaimed,
“Miss Bayley, this is truly a pleasure, and right now let me say that I
sincerely regret not having visited your little school before this, but,
since your arrival, I have been more than ever confined to the bank
during school-hours. However, I shall endeavor to visit your district
regularly after the first of January.”
They had seated themselves at the banker’s invitation, and Josephine
Bayley said quietly, “I shall not be the teacher at Woodford’s school in
January, Mr. Clayburn.”